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The Story so Far
This page is a rough story of our adventurers. Some items may be slightly inaccurate since I am basing the first chapter and partly into the second chapter off pure memory. Some sections may be rather barebones until I have time to watch the videos again. Newer stuff will have more detail. Party Breakdown * Draven - Human Hunter * Kerrin - Dragonborn Warlock - Replaced by Naivara * Orrin - Dragonborn Warlock * Gnomie Halfsling - Gnome Magitech Gunslinger * Finnian - Halfling Druid - Left to seek alternate adventures * Ma'ana - Human Monk * Naivara - Elf Cleric Chapter 1 : The initial chapter is an adaptation of Lost Mines of Phandelver. Being new to being a DM, having a module to go off of made things significantly easier. Somehow, though, the party managed to completely derail much of the main premise behind the module. Starting off The party starts off in the small town of Underwatch in northern Far Reach. Each of them had their reasonings for going through The Pass. Unfortunately for them, The Pass has closed down for the winter. The party tried to negotiate, but Thorin Crownshield stood his ground, but offered to make an exception for a costly 7,000g. Thorin hinted at a possible alternative route through the mountains. The party, just starting out, did not have this kind of currency, so they went back into town to seek this alternative. In the town, they met a dwarf by the name of Gundren Rockseeker. Gundren overheard their stresses of The Pass being closed, so he offered the party work in the meantime. He had a delivery that needed to go to Phandalin, but the problem was Gundren had to go ahead of them to take care of some business in town before the party got there. The party agreed and Gundren provided the horses and carts needed to move the supplies. Afterwards, Gundren took off on horseback along with his hired mercenary, Sildar Hallwinter. Phandalin & The Redbrands The next day, the party set foot to Phandalin. They were warned by rumors to avoid the town of Brackenmill due to high civil unrest in the city, so they abided. They turned West towards their destination, but after about a day's travel they came across a gruesome scene. Ahead of them, a couple members could spot horses that had been brutally murdered. Upon investigation, the party was ambushed by a group of goblins. They fended off the ambushers and inspected the wreckage. The remains were immediately recognized, the horses in which Gundren and Sildar set off on. The saddlebags were looted and nearby was an empty leather map case. The party found tracks and drag marks leading North into the woods and began to follow. Bypassing the traps laid out by the goblins, the party happened upon a cave with a river flowing out. They dispatched the makeshift guards outside and worked their way in. Upon exploring and clearing the cave, Gnomie was ambushed by several goblins, Klarg, and his wolf, Ripper. He barely managed to escape with his life when he runs back into the party. Eventually, the cave is cleared and the party finds Sildar and Finnian both captured by the goblins. There are also many crates that have the Lionshield Coster symbol. The party finds out through interrogation about the Black Spider and King Grol and that their "princess" Gundren is in another castle. With the whole party finally together, they load all the crates, minus one crossbow in which Draven steals. They set off to Phandalin with Sildar. Their arrival to the town is quiet. They meet several townsfolk and eventually learn about a group called the Redbrands ran by a man named Glasstaff. Two party members take to partying while the rest decide to try to take down the threat of the Redbrands. Ma'ana and Finnian decide to have a night on the town and things go from great to terrible. Black out drunk, they find themselves in a dark, damp cave. Ma'ana, being human, can't make out up from left and begins to blabber to anything that will listen. Finnian is able to see relatively okay. Through exploration, they deduce that this cave is an owlbear den and they get the bright idea to steal some owlbear eggs. They manage to slip by the owlbear with the eggs in tow. The rest party takes it upon themselves to dispatch this threat and help the city get back on its feet and out from under the rule of a bandit. Glasstaff is captured and found to be a rogue member of the Lord's Alliance. Glasstaff is sent to Holden for execution. The party is gifted the ruined Tresendar Manor, the Redbrands' base of operations. Upon investigating Glasstaff's quarters, Draven injects himself with a questionable serum and begins transforming into a bloodhunter. After a day or two, the party is reminded of Gundren by an old adventurer, Daran Edermath. Daran gives them the location of the druid, Reidoth, and the party makes haste to Thundertree. Thundertree & Ma'ana's Mishap With a Dragon The party arrives in Thundertree only to find the ruins of a small town. Through deduction, the happen upon Reidoth who brings them in and feeds them. After some talk, they learn about the undead, living plants, cult, and dragon all encompassing the area. After dealing with a few things for Reidoth, they decide they were going to "talk" to this dragon. They stealthily work their way into the house attached to the tower in which the dragon slept. Draven decided to go around the outside to get a height advantage. On cue, the party ambushed the dragon. The party managed to start to drive the dragon to retreat, but with Draven and Ma'ana in tow. Rising several hundred feet, the dragon shakes Draven and managed to pull a rather intense maneuver to bring Ma'ana from its back to it's claws. Through chance, or through divine intervention, the dragon spared Ma'ana's life. After several hours of flight, the dragon lands to rest. The dragon admitted to knowing that he and Ma'ana worship the same deity, the Star Mother, Selûne. In a religious sense, Venomfang and Ma'ana are cousins. Travelling continues until they land at the House of Wisdom. There, Ma'ana meets High Priest Harvey Leighton and has a come-to-deity moment. With this, Ma'ana gives up drinking. Eventually they make way back to the rest of the party. Ma'ana goes to the party alone and gives her tale to the party and, with that, they befriend a young, green dragon. Fangy helps clear Cragmaw Castle for the party and with that, the party frees Gundren from the clutches of King Grol. The Spider, The Wraith, and The Spectator Gundren directs the party to the Wave Echo Cave. In the entrance, they find one of Gundren's brothers dead at the camp. Gundren seeks vengeance, but knows he does not possess the abilities to do so himself, so he entrusts the task to the party. Sildar, with his high standing in the Lord's Alliance, and Townmaster Harbin Wester have promised the party 10% of the earnings of the cave if they are able to clear it. Easily enough, they dispatch most of the threats throughout the mines. They happen upon the resident spectator and his "rival", a wraith named Mormesk. The spectator speaks in riddles and is very reserved on letting anyone into his room since he has been tasked to protect the Forge of Spells. The party decides to leave this situation alone and try to find the Black Spider. Upon stumbling onto the Black Spider, they kill him along with his spider minions. With this, they free Gundren's other brother, Nundro. Still not satisfied with the spectator and wraith situation, they head back to that section of the cave. Upon arriving, the spectator gifts the party two pieces of magical equipment. One of the pieces of equipment had a note addressed to Kerrin. Upon opening the note, Kerrin vanishes from the material plane and in her spot appears an elf named Naivara. Orrin is completely freaked out about this. He fumbles around for the note and the note is now addressed to himself. He opens the letter: :Orrin, : :Your sister is safe... : :Her powers have been growing exponentially compared to yours. With her evil ways, it would have been only a matter of time before you wouldn't have been able to stop her. Because of this, I have taken her under my wing to help her control her growing knowledge. : :I have been watching you and your sister for some time. I have seen your studies. Quite frankly, the Yin and Yang is quite cute, but downright nauseating. I am disappointed in you, Orrin. You were not destined for good. : :Your fates were aligned until the day you chose the good, righteous path. Now, only Kerrin is destined for unimaginable greatness. It's such a shame that the two of you will not be working towards this greatness together. You should know from your studies that only the evil truly make a name for themselves in this world. : :I truly wish you the best on your insignificant journey through life. While you have the potential to achieve remarkable things, your accomplishments will forever be overshadowed by the rest of your comrades. Such is the way of the good natured. : :''-X.O.'' This letter threw Orrin for a loop. His sister, there one second, replaced by an elf the next. He wants answers now more so than ever before. Through a series of fortunate events, the party befriends the Spectator. He is a remnant of an ancient wizard before war in which Wave Echo Cave was lost. He points his figurative finger at the wraith, so the party goes to confront the wraith. The wraith gave a sound rebuttal and the party had a decision to make. Take out the wraith or take out the spectator. They chose to take out the wraith. A valiant fight in which the party was successful. Upon going back to the spectator, his demeanor changed... He turned on them claiming they had killed his master. Fighting ensues and the spectator proved to be a more powerful opponent than the wraith, but our party scrapes a victory. The mines are cleared and the party returns to Phandalin to collect their reward. Some politics take place and the restoration of the manor begins. They agreed that the first 6 months of their profits will go towards renovating the manor and the second 6 months will go to the creation of a teleportation circle inside the manor for quick travel. This is rather costly since magic isn't well received in Far Reach. Chapter 2 :The party has successfully defeated all major threats surrounding Phandalin. They now hold the deed to their own property and have made a name for themselves in this small district of Far Reach. A lot of work needs to be done to the manor, so they decide to take off 6 months from adventuring to take care of some personal matters and to, well, raise two owlbears. Brief Recap of Downtime * Ma'ana goes on quest with Fangy to figure herself out * Gnomie, Draven, and Naivara go to Shadowhaven for some special wood and for Gnomie to see the remnants of his village. * Gnomie and Draven find tracks leading to the mountains and find a few remaining gnomes from Gnomie's village. They offer the gnomes a better life in Phandalin and the gnomes return with them. They have proven themselves useful. * The owlbears are hatched. They are named ___ and ___. * Much progress is made on the manor and the first floor is nearly done by the time they leave for The Pass Troll Trouble The adventurers head back to Underwatch to complete what they initially set out to do. Upon arriving, they learn the next expedition is not leaving for another few days. Thorin directs them to some issues on the countryside with sheep going missing. Since they have nothing better to do, the party seeks out Thorin Karrag. This Thorin is an old sheep farmer that has had his prized sheep go missing. The sheep is his daughter's and describes the sheep as a pretty, fit sheep with a blue collar. The collar has his daughter's birthstone, a sapphire. The reward offered is Thorin pulling his weight to pay for the passage of the party. He suspects trolls. He guides the party to a passage leading up high into the mountains. The party begins to climb the mountain. Many switchbacks and sore calf muscles later, the party creeps up to what looks like a cave. Draven inspects the cave and sees three large blue spiders peering at him from the opening. Two of them crawl back inside and the other keeps watch. The party decides to take their chances and pulls out their torches. They start to torch a path through the cave and realize it's less of a cave and more of a tunnel. Far ahead of them, they can see the exit, so they creep slowly, burning web as they go. Gnomie peers back and realizes that all the web they destroy is replaced within seconds. About halfway through the cave, a spider appears and begins attacking them. One spider turns to three. Ma'ana makes a dash towards the exit, but is caught by a spider. The party battles and makes consistent progress to the exit. One spider dies and another one takes its place. The second spider dies and another takes its place. Contemplating making a stand to destroy all the spiders, the party keeps fighting. Before they know it, there are more eyes than they can quickly count and decide to cut their losses and "tactically retreat" through the exit. Upon exiting, they see the first spider they encountered, on the outside of the cave above the entrance. Orrin gives the spider a nod of respect and the party continues traversing up the mountainside. Traversing higher, nightfall is approaching. After several more switchbacks, a few party members hear grunts and noises coming from around a bend. The stealthier individuals make their way around the bend and notice two large creatures hovering around a fire. After some haphazard planning, the party engages the trolls. Though successful, Ma'ana almost found her way off the edge of the mountainside. They do not see any sheep, but they do see drag marks, blood, and bones headed farther up the mountain. Despite the darkness, the party pushes on. The passage takes them into a canyon of sorts, only it's so dark that they cannot tell if there is a ceiling attached to the sides of the mountain. Regardless, they have a mission. The passage gets tighter to the point where they have to go one by one and sometimes canyon themselves across back to flat and. Eventually, they find themselves in an open area, or cavern. They still aren't quite sure if they are indoors or outdoors at this point. Looking around, they see the sheep. Two hastily make their way to the sheep and start comforting. Another starts inspecting the surrounding boulders, leaving the blind-in-the-dark monk to "guard" the entrance. After a short amount of time, they hear what sounds like something sliding down a mountainside. Before they have a chance to react, a stone giant lands behind Ma'ana and makes his presence known with a terrifying warcry. The stone giant proves to be tough, but the party is victorious. The giant killed the three sheep in the process. Not wanting to show up with just the collar, Naivara successfully brings the Daisy, the main sheep, back to life. They dust themselves off and strategize a plan on how to get the sheep off the mountain. Orrin decides to make Daisy less noticeable. He begins to take off her collar and the collar, unbenounced to him, was trapped. It explodes in his face and Orrin goes unconscious. The party hastily gets him back up and decide the sooner they get down, the better. On the way down, they pass by the campfire the original trolls were and encounter two more trolls, dispatching them with relative ease. A bit farther down, they reach the cavernous tunnel that housed the spiders. They try to devise a plan to get through without too much trouble and after many minutes of debate, they decide to try to go through without destroying web or being threatening to the spiders. The spiders watch the party carefully as they make their way through. On either side of them, they see nothing but the eyes of spiders. Slowly, the party makes their way to the exit and leave unscathed. Turns out the spiders just didn't want their home destroyed. Silly adventurers. They return Daisy seemingly unharmed and head to town to collect their reward of free escort through the pass. They take a rest the next day and have some interesting encounters with a few of the travelling merchants and prepare for their next journey. The Pass is More Than it Seems :The first 3 days are smooth, developed passage. In the middle of the passage is a set of rails used to haul any debris and to allow faster passage in the future. All change of elevation are accompanied with stairs on either side of the rails. Dividing the stairs in half on either side are smooth ramps for any cargo on wheels. : :On the 4th day, you start to see signs of undeveloped tunnel. No longer are their stairs on every elevation change, but the rails keep going. The guards mention that the end of the current tunnel is about a day’s travel, but that the group will be turning off relatively soon. : :The guard make camp just in front of the turnoff. In the morning, they lay down the ground rules. Stick close and listen to their every order. If not, it could mean the life of fellow travelers or all of the group. Y’all descend into the cave. Steep and steady downhill. : :Late day 6, you find yourself treading on flat land, in what you can gather, is the underdark. It’s been hot, sticky, and nasty. The stench of your fellow travelers and yourself are starting to become a little unbearable. What has been stagnant air, you are starting to feel a slight breeze. If it wasn’t for your constant downhill travel, you’d almost think you were nearing the exit. A few more turns and the cave begins to open up. Twisting and turning, you begin to smell nature. The smell of trees, flowers, grass, rain all hit you at once. Shortly after the smell, you begin to hear what sounds like birds chirping, a slight drizzle, and bugs. As you are taking all of this in, you round one more corner and in front of you, you see the impossible. A absolutely massive cavern, except, it’s not just a cavern. Before you, you see what looks like above ground. Trees sprouting 2 to 300 feet in the air, rain drizzling down through the canopy, bushes, shrubs, squirrels, birds, grass, light. Looking left and right, you see no end to the seemingly… : :“Endless Cavern”, the lead dwarf says. “A beautiful sight for those who have never seen it. It’s absolutely massive. Reaching as wide as 75 miles and approaching 200 miles across. Our exit is about 100 miles in. It cycles day and night in here almost true to the cycle of above ground. Nobody really knows of the origins. Some say an ancient druid looking for solitude built this. Some say it was glitch in creation. Most, however, know nothing about it. We have a base camp here and on the far side. We will head there, stay the night, restock, and take off in the morning. For reference,” he points to his left “North,” points to the right, “South”, points ahead “East”. : :The guards point off to the right and you can see protruding from the wall what looks like a miniature fort. Not built for defenses, but more to you feel at home. A large area is fenced in with a fire pit in the middle. There are a handful of dwarves already here, eagerly greeting the company. : :“I would prefer if you stayed here, but I’m not going to stop you from exploring some. This area is relatively safe with the exception of the occasional large beast. There’s a place you can wash up just to the south if you wish to do so. Just be warned, if you are not back by morning, we will be leaving you behind. It’s on you to catch up if that happens.” : :The evening is theirs. They explore a bit and get a little bit of the lay of the land, but it is ultimately cut short by sleep and the need to push on. : :You set off in the morning. Heading a general NE direction. Over the next 3 days you find yourself going through the endless cavern. Forests, plains, meadows, and at one point you even spot what looks to be a desert to your SE. Small critters, seemingly not scared of you, join you at times on your walks, sometimes singing and chattering away to you. In the evening, places to wash up and relax are abundant. At night, you find yourself surrounded by wolves. They are relatively friendly, begging for food and pets, but eager to defend at any noise they deem a threat in the night. This gives most of you peace of mind as you sleep. At the end of the 3rd day through the endless cavern, you find yourself hugging the wall and you see a familiar sight, another fenced in fort with another set of dwarven guards. : :“We are not staying here tonight. We must push on a few more hours.” The dwarves restock on a few supplies and usher everyone into the nearby cave opening. A feeling of slight resentment flushes over you, knowing that you’re going to be stuck in close quarters with a large group again, but you reluctantly dredge on. : :The path ahead has the same feeling as the descent, only ascending. Steep and steady uphill. You can’t figure out if the uphill strain on your calves and thighs are worse than the constant jarring of your knees and ankles on the downhill. Either way, you push on. During rests, you find yourself having to brace yourself into crevices for comfort. Sleeping is a chore as you are sleeping almost standing up. Flatter spots are few and far between and when you do come across them, the guards insist the women get them. : :Day 12, the slope starts to narrow off. You climb your way out of the tighter caverns and you find yourself back in a man-made tunnel with a railing in the middle. This time, you can see the miners working hard on the tunnel, digging, smoothing, and carving. “This passage was unearthed shortly before the closure of the pass. Cuts about 2 days travel from the other entrance. Anyways, there’s a camp up ahead. We can camp there and we are about 2 days out from the exit. It’s safe travel from here, so if you want to go along your merry way and push ahead, feel free. If you find the right people, you might be able to pay for a rail into town.” : :The camp is nothing special. Cots strewn across the ground and into a leveled cave. Some of the miners are already drinking and getting ready for bed. : :Day 14, The tunnel looks as pristine as when you first entered. As you walk through the portcullis, you are greeted by more dwarven guards “Welcome, travelers, to Umgor”. : Welcome, Travelers, to Umgor Category:The Story so Far Category:Needs Work